


the heat of summer

by theflyjar



Series: landmarks for my errors in your scars [3]
Category: C-Pop, EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Ancient China, Historical, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Kissing, M/M, Pining, Reunions, Royalty, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 03:54:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19760071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theflyjar/pseuds/theflyjar
Summary: When he is with Yifan, he feels love-drunk and untouchable.





	the heat of summer

**Author's Note:**

> This is set before the other two, just to have smth fluffy!!! In this, Yixing is 18-19 and Yifan is 19-20!!
> 
> The bruising on Yifan's body in this fic is from his father, but it is not explicitly stated!

Lullaby notes fill the air, ricocheting from surface to surface until they diffuse in Yixing’s ears in gentle hums. Summer burns hot in the air, but Yixing’s chambers are somewhat cooled by the wafting of the fans in the hands of servants. With his classes complete, there isn’t much else for him to do when the palace is so stifled by the season that it almost feels difficult to breathe. Yixing stretches across his daybed like a cat in the cool shade. It is Yixing’s sister on the seven-string  _ Qin _ that’s played out in the courtyard, perched beautifully atop an ornamental rock. There’s a general hum of voices that layer over the music, dulling it with a soothing white noise, and it lulls Yixing half asleep.

The sun shines so hotly that the thinnest of robes cover Yixing’s body and he doesn’t even have a single bed sheet draped over him. Time moves slowly, too, as if taking a leisurely stroll through Yixing’s world. And, he supposes, that it is. Yifan has been absent for five moon cycles already, off to his father’s homeland of the south, and Yixing misses him greatly. He writes letters that are sent on horseback and he receives them in kind. Yifan is no great romantic or poet, but he spins his words in a way that only Yixing can read and feel within his heart. He locks each parchment away in a chest, to stow them from prying hands and eyes, and covet them as keepsakes from his love. Their letters are a symbol of intimacy. Elements of their lives others are not privy to.

Yixing is awaiting a new letter, something to quench the thirst of his lonely heart, but no servant brings one in through his doors. There’s an ache in Yixing’s chest that groans like a ship rolling in the tide without Yifan’s presence, both physically and between the words on parchment. He supposes being a prince has forged him to be impatient, spoilt. Or, maybe, it’s Yifan who encourages him to become that, with how he bends at Yixing’s feet and cossets him with an immediacy that Yixing has grown used to. Still, the days that stretch between sending and receiving letters from Yifan feel longer. Maybe they are, given the seasonal change, but the hours Yixing spends awake are torturously long compared to the short reprieve from loneliness sleep brings him. 

The chasm of weeks between the last time Yifan touched Yixing only grows, and Yixing detests it. He wants him close. He’s touch-starved.

“Are you still moping,  _ didi?” _

That voice alone can distract Yixing from the heat that’s cocooned Yixing and he lifts his eyelids a little higher to see one of his brothers stood off to the side of the room, leant against the wall.

“No.” Yixing throws an arm across his face to cover his eyes. “Just hot.”

“Then, I assume, it wouldn’t bring you much joy to learn that the convoy from the south has been sighted within a day’s ride from the city’s walls?” 

Yixing sits up on his daybed so swiftly his head spins and vision sparkles, and servants flurry to right his robes. “A day?”

“Perhaps less.” Yixing scrambles from where he’d been reclined and he hears his brother’s laughter. “And suddenly you’re invigorated after days _ —weeks— _ of despondency.”

Ignoring the teasing, he asks to have two baths drawn for him, one to wash the day’s sweat from his skin now, and one for the morning that would be infused with the oils of whichever sweetly-scented blossom is in season. Some of his longest serving companions discuss the details of Yixing’s robing for when Yifan arrives, knowing how much Yixing adores looking like the prince that he is for his lover. They discuss foods, drinks, and bedding, among other things, as if it shall be Yixing’s wedding night.

“I do not understand the fuss you make for one person alone,” Yixing’s brother remarks, almost in awe of the entire thing. “You would expect such actions for the Emperor, not the son of a lord.”

“You are merely not in love,” another voice chimes in.

“I see you making no such commotion for your husband,” Yixing’s brother points out. 

Yifan’s mother looks upon them fondly, as if they are her own children.

“My husband and I do not seek romance from one another. I do, however, wish to have my son receive a happy homecoming. And, I am the bearer of the news that the court would like for the youngest prince,” she fixes her eyes on Yixing alone, “to resume his extracurricular tuition again with tenacity, rather than spend his days in a heartbroken stupor in his chambers.”

“I am not heartbroken.”

_ “ _ Xing- _ di,  _ you are not being discreet if even those mole-eyed ministers have taken notice.” 

Yixing motions to refute but doesn’t, preferring to place his attention on the servant who comes to inform him that his bath has been appropriately prepared for him. Nothing more is said when he departs his day chamber to where his bath awaits him, but Yixing knows within himself that his brother and the ministers have been correct. He hasn’t quite been the youngest Zhang prince that the court knows in the weeks since Yifan departed, but he cannot help it.

When he is with Yifan, he feels love-drunk and untouchable. He is the centre of everything Yifan does and that sets him aglow with a bliss he cannot verbally articulate. There is no doubt surrounding Yifan’s devotion to him, so Yixing does not fear him finding another whilst they are separated. What does spread anxiety through him is the idea of growing used to being apart. Each new trip and journey Yifan has taken with his father lasts longer than the one before it.

What were once day-long outings have stretched to last multiple moons, and whilst Yixing knows he has — or has access to — the power to command that Yifan remain by his side at court, he does not wish to wield himself like that.

Yet, as he sinks into the wonderfully cool water of the bath without the body of his lover there to envelop him, the idea of doing that feels all the more appealing.

◈◈◈

The sun sits bloated in the middle of the sky, smothering the inner palace courtyards in a biting heat, when the gates begin to open. Yixing stands beneath a stone awning, shaded from the heat and fanned by the servants that bustle around him, and they all move like water around him as he makes towards the gates. He is kept shaded by parasols held by those closest to him, and whilst it doesn’t do much to ward of the heat, it keeps it from burning along the skin of his cheeks.

There’s the stony sound of hooves meeting the paved stones that lead into the palace grounds and Yixing clenches at the sleeves of his robes when he stops still in the middle of the outer courtyard of the palace. It doesn’t take much longer for the horses to appear, carrying soldiers who surround the more regally dressed envoy.

When Yixing lays his eyes upon Yifan once more, he can see where the sun has kissed across Yifan’s skin and left a golden prize in its wake. Yifan sits tall and proud upon his horse, glancing around until he lays his eyes upon Yixing. A smile breaks out on both of their faces in time with one another and Yixing feels a fluttering in his chest that quickens his breath.

Yifan is jumping down off his horse and his name is curtly, almost harshly, called by his father, until he sees Yixing and his demeanor softens. Yifan runs, uncaring of the heavy sword bouncing off his leg, and Yixing starts to walk swiftly to meet him. The kiss Yixing draws him into is warmed by the sighs he lets out and the puffs of light laughter Yifan blows into his mouth.

Despite knowing they should share his reunion in private, lest Yixing be viewed as uncouth and lacking in decorum, but he simply cannot bring himself to care for that. He can forget himself for a few moments, hands buried and hidden in Yifan’s hair, holding him tightly and craning his neck upwards to keep their mouths joined.

“My prince,” Yifan murmurs, hands cupping Yixing’s cheeks, with his left thumb caressing over Yixing’s bottom lip once they part. “When I last saw you, you were ankle-deep in snow, wrapped up in furs.”

“It has been too long,” Yixing agrees, staring intently into Yifan’s eyes. “But, you’re home now, and we’ve all been waiting for you.”

When a guard calls for Yixing to head back to the safety of the inner courtyards, he loops his arm around Yifan’s elbow and begins to lead the way. He talks of the banquet he’s laid out for the returning party, that the soldiers are being granted leave and that Yixing has managed to wrangle his way out of classes for the next three days. Then, he asks Yifan about the trip. 

He’s told of wildlife, sweeter foods, and sticky, humid heat. Yifan describes his father’s family villa that sits on the shores of a beautiful lake, where Yifan took respite from the hot weather by swimming in the mornings and evenings with the guards he was training with. Yifan tells him of the fashions of the south, of how the braids the men would decorate their hair with and how their  _ ji  _ would sit upon their heads, and how they would wear their silks. Yixing was mesmerised by every word that dripped from Yifan’s lips.

“When your brother takes to the throne and you are granted a little more freedom, I shall take you there. Just you and I.”

“I shall hold you to that as if it were a promise.”

“It is one.”

◈◈◈

Yifan’s cup is brimming the entire evening whilst the return of him and his father is celebrated as if they were soldiers victoriously coming home from war. It is Yifan’s friends and sparring partners that he left behind at the palace that have him laughing loudly and are filling his cup with alcohol. They all seem just as happy as Yixing that Yifan has come back to the palace, treating it as if it’s a festive occasion. 

Yixing itches to be beside Yifan, taking sips he knows he isn’t allowed to from Yifan’s cup, but he is bundled up with his brothers. Sat in pride of place at the table is Yixing’s father, the emperor, and Yixing sits next to his brother that’s closest to him in age. Opposite Yixing’s father are Yifan’s parents, with everyone listening intently to the stories Yifan’s father spins of their travels. It has everyone enraptured, apart from Yixing.

All he does is stare longingly at his lover, who resides in a room connected to the one Yixing is in, separating those who have the Emperor’s favour with those who do not. Though, Yifan is stood in just the right place that Yixing can see him through the slightly ajar room. That’s not by accident, either, given how many times Yifan glances at him and smiles. And that brings back the fluttering feeling in Yixing’s chest.

It’s only when Yifan’s called upon by his father that he rejoins the nobility, straightening his robes and placing his alcohol in the hands of a servant to take away. He is placed on a seat beside his mother once has bowed to the emperor, still out of reach from Yixing, but far closer now. He is given yet another drink for when toasts are made, and it isn’t unclear for Yixing to see Yifan’s reluctance to swallow it down it, not wishing to be inebriated in the presence of the kingdom’s emperor. Still, they are kept there until the regents move on from the celebrations, heading to do other things or to sleep, with most of Yixing’s siblings following suit, but Yixing remains. He knows Yifan would wish to go back to his friends, so Yixing lingers to bid Yifan goodnight and make promises to invite him to his chambers for breakfast in the morning.

“I am going to be heading back to my chambers now,  _ Gege,” _ Yixing whispers to Yifan, joining their hands together when Yifan reaches out to him. “It is getting late and the summer always makes me rather lethargic.”

“Should I walk with you there?” Yifan offers, and Yixing shakes his head.

“I shall be all right on my own, with my servants. You can go and spend the rest of the night with your friends and celebrate your homecoming.”

Yifan shifts his hand until his fingers are interlocked between Yixing’s and Yixing can feel the slight drunken sway to how Yifan holds himself. “I don’t think I can drink much more without making myself unwell. I think I should sleep, too. And, I have been informed by numerous sources that your main hobby in my absence was to lay forlornly prone on your daybed.”

“Longing for you was very tiring,” Yixing quips, not caring if Yifan knew of his sulking, he hadn’t exactly made it unknown in his letters.

“Then let us get you to bed and soothe this ‘longing’.” The words slur together slightly, but Yixing ignores that, favouring to grin at Yifan instead.

“My chambers are closest, we may both sleep there.”

Yixing gently tugs Yifan’s hand and he stumbles slightly after Yixing but hovers closely as they weave through the passageways of the palace and cross courtyards to come to the doors of Yixing’s bedchamber. Servants move close, hands poised to disrobe Yixing, and he lets them once he has guided Yifan to take up one of the seats out by Yixing’s writing desk.

Servants go in Yifan’s direction, but Yixing waves them away, telling them that he will handle Yifan, given his inebrity. Awaiting their departure from the room, Yixing tugs his lover to his feet and begins to peel away the fabrics of his robes until bare flesh is revealed. They undo each other’s hair, letting the locks of it fall down from where they have been tied up and pinned atop their heads. Yifan kisses him sweetly, gently, as he does so, until Yixing’s hands go to his waist where he grabs hard and Yifan flinches. Yixing pulls back and in the glow of candlelight around the room, he can see bruising stretched up Yifan’s side like the clouds of a harsh thunderstorm.

“What happened to you?” Yixing questions and Yifan blinks a few times over before looking down at where Yixing’s eyes have settled. Bruising covers Yifan’s left side with small cuts littered through it.

“Oh, uh,” Yifan tilts his head, as if thinking, and Yixing’s brow furrows with worry, “it’s from the training I have been doing, it will heal soon.”

It looks so fresh that Yixing hesitates to touch it, but does when Yifan moves towards where Yixing’s hands are.

“You should be more careful,” Yixing warns, skimming his fingers over the blued skin, careful to not touch any of the parts of scabbed over sections. “Your sparring should not be so brutal all the time. Tell your next partner that they shall face the wrath of one of the kingdom’s princes if they cause too much damage.”

“Of course, my prince.” 

Yixing says nothing more about it, thinking it futile whilst Yifan isn’t entirely coherent, and kisses his lover again. They draw closer to the bed each time their lips meet, until Yixing is pressing Yifan down onto it and takes up the space beside him. It’s too hot for much else other than kissing — for Yixing, at least — and Yifan doesn’t express the want to do anything else, so that’s all they do. 

Yifan sleeps first and Yixing drifts off, his head resting on the clammy skin of Yifan’s chest.

Yixing only wakes when he feels Yifan move from beneath him, both of their bodies too warm to be so close but Yixing lets Yifan drift away from his side, albeit unwillingly. The candles are still burning and a hum leaves Yixing’s throat, getting Yifan’s attention, which earns him a hand brushing through his sweat-matted hair.

“Go back to sleep, I just need some something to drink.” Yifan pulls away to stand, walking quietly to where cooled boiled water sits in a large jug on a tray. Yixing can hear Yifan decant it into a cup and how his breathing changes to accommodate his sips. 

“Your thirst is depriving me of time spent with you,” Yixing whines, sleepily and quietly, but the soft snort he hears indicates that Yifan has heard him. 

“You are spoilt, little prince.” Without looking, Yixing knows that Yifan is smiling, something small and gentle yet radiant. The sound of the cup being placed back onto the tray is loud enough to echo slightly and Yifan is back within moments.

“Only because you pamper me so much,” Yixing mutters, reaching out for Yifan to pull him back into the bed. “For something to be sweet, you have to add sugar.”

“Then I have added far too much and created something overindulgent.” Yixing is given a kiss and then his head is moved back onto Yifan’s chest, where he adjusts himself to be comfortable again. 

He doesn’t mind the heat, wrapped up like they are, and he assumes that Yifan does not either, with how his fingers drift up and down Yixing’s back, embracing him faintly. The night stills, only the insects outside make any noise, and Yixing can imagine a world where it is only the two of them. Yifan would not have to leave and Yixing would not be trapped in the palace, unable to accompany him. 

“Do I have to kiss you to halt your thoughts, little prince?” Comes Yifan’s increasingly sleep-laden words.

“Yes,” Yixing mutters, letting his head be moved as Yifan uses his fingers to tilt his chin upwards.

He has gone for months without this, those little moments of comfort and the privilege of kissing Yifan on a whim, whenever either of them wish to. Their lips meet languidly and Yixing never wishes for them to part again, but when they inevitably do, he lets out a drowsy laugh when Yifan tells him:

“Sweet, indeed.”


End file.
